Who Kept Peeping at Widow Feng Bathing?

Suddenly, a loud shout came from outside: "Li Lao Er, you shameless bastard, get the hell out here!"

Second Uncle whipped around, somewhat startled.

Lin Xiaosu was also a little surprised...

The newcomer was Widow Feng's son. Lin Xiaosu had forgotten his full name; everyone called him San Lengzi. His defining trait was being reckless. What did reckless mean? At the slightest disagreement, he'd grab a stick. If he could fight, he definitely wouldn't waste time talking...

Second Uncle was, after all, a Taoist priest. The village elders all respected him greatly. No one had ever called him shameless or acted like his father in front of him.

Second Uncle's face darkened. "What kind of nonsense are you pulling, brat?"

San Lengzi shouted, "I'm pulling nonsense? Could I possibly be more unreasonable than you? You filthy pervert! You peeped at my mom bathing again last night! Have you no shame? I'm breaking your legs today!"

"Bullshit!" Second Uncle finally snapped and cursed loudly.

"You peeped at my mom bathing before. Last night, you came back to the village and peeped at her again! You shameless bastard, over fifty and still doing such disgusting things..." San Lengzi raised the stick in his hand, lunged onto the platform, and swung it at Second Uncle.

Second Uncle's face turned pale, then green with rage. He was visibly agitated...

Just as the stick was about to come down, Lin Xiaosu stepped forward and grabbed its end. "San Lengzi, you're acting up again!"

"Stay out of this! I'm going to stand up for my mom today! Let go! If you don't, I'll beat you too!"

"You dare?" A voice came from behind the willow tree!

With a whoosh, a beautiful woman appeared. Bang!

One kick sent San Lengzi flying sideways. He nearly rolled off the cliff.

Hu Ya appeared, hands on her hips as she stood before San Lengzi. "I can't be bothered when you act like a fool in front of other people, but you dare hit my dad?"

San Lengzi's boundless momentum instantly vanished. Sitting on the ground, his face went white. "Y-you... your dad... your dad did disgraceful things..."

His voice had grown much weaker, and his eyes darted about uneasily.

"My dad came down the mountain last night to treat my mom's illness. How could he possibly have gone to watch your mom bathe?"

"Before... before, he did watch her. Last night, he happened to come down the mountain... if it wasn't him, who was it?"

"I don't know about before, but he definitely didn't watch last night!" Hu Ya said with a stern face. "Say one more word of crap, and I'll throw you straight down there!"

San Lengzi was scared.

He twisted around, scrambled to his feet, and ran. Once he reached the mountain path, he turned back and yelled, "Li Diandian, you're tough. I can't beat you, but your dad won't get off easy! I'm going down the mountain right now, going door to door through the village, and telling everyone that Li Lao Er is a piece of trash..."

"You're asking for a beating!" Hu Ya leaped into the air and gave chase!

"Don't chase each other on the mountain path! You two really are..." Lin Xiaosu chased after them too.

Behind them, at Willow Forest Temple, Second Uncle slapped his forehead, his face full of conflict.

It would have been easy for Hu Ya to catch San Lengzi, but Lin Xiaosu had followed after them. Seeing him run so perilously along the mountain path, Hu Ya could only stop and wait for him.

By the time they came down the mountain, the little village was already in an uproar.

San Lengzi came down from the mountain and began shouting at the top of his lungs, "Li Lao Er from Willow Forest Temple has no shame! He watched my mom bathing last night..."

The little village immediately erupted into chaos.

Widow Feng was so furious that she wanted to grab a hoe handle and knock her own bastard son unconscious with a few blows.

Second Aunt was also panicked. She climbed out of bed and rushed outside in disheveled clothes. "San Lengzi, you idiot! My Lao Er never went out after coming down the mountain last night..."

The villagers nearby had found some early-morning entertainment, and every one of them was delighted.

Even Anna, the village's foreign daughter-in-law, was curious. In her clumsy Chinese, she asked her husband, Lin Ji'an, "Honey, is peeping at widows bathing a custom here?"

Lin Ji'an was speechless. "Ahem... You're not allowed to bathe in the river anymore."

"Why? The river water isn't cold. We bathe in icy rivers back home... Besides, I'm not a widow. Aren't you still here?"

"This isn't about whether it's cold, and it's even less about widows..." Lin Ji'an desperately scratched his head.

That was the difference in culture. She was from the northern Heilan Kingdom. In her country, there was nothing strange about women letting men see their bodies. During a certain festival, they could even openly perform nude onstage.

By the time Lin Xiaosu and Hu Ya returned to the village, this whole mess had already blown up.

Lin Xiaosu's first thought was that San Lengzi truly was reckless. He was actually capable of doing something as stupid as hurting himself worse than the enemy.

Hu Ya gritted her teeth, determined to beat the shit out of San Lengzi!

But Lin Xiaosu held her back. "Now we really need to find the person who watched Widow Feng bathe. Otherwise, your dad's reputation will truly be ruined."

"That person must have run off long ago. How are we supposed to find him?" Hu Ya scratched her head.

"Even if he ran, he left traces behind!" Lin Xiaosu said.

"That's true. Widow Feng bathes in the room at the back. The only place to peep from would be the ditch behind it. Let's follow the footprints and see which way he went. I absolutely don't believe my dad had the spare time to do something like that last night..."

"I believe him too. It's not just that he didn't have the spare time; he probably didn't have the time at all."

Lin Xiaosu truly believed so as well. Her dad had come down the mountain last night to "give her mom an injection." One injection when he came down the mountain, another at midnight. Widow Feng must have been bathing between the two injections, so Second Uncle should not have had time for this.

"Let's go! Investigate the case! If we prove it wasn't my dad, I'll tear that filthy mouth of his apart..."

Widow Feng's house stood at the eastern end of the village, backed against the mountain.

When Lin Xiaosu and Hu Ya reached the back of her courtyard wall, Widow Feng was clearly still there. But the moment she saw them, she immediately picked up a hoe, slung it over her shoulder, and went out. Her expression was terrible. It was unclear whether she was heading to the fields to work or to beat up her reckless son.

Judging by her back, she really did have a fine figure. That was probably the fundamental reason why the joke about "Widow Feng bathing" had endured so long in the little village.

The moment Lin Xiaosu and Hu Ya reached the ditch behind her house, they heard San Lengzi's booming voice. "Mom, you don't need to find that old pervert. I already found him... Ah, Mom, why are you hitting me? You've gone mad with anger..."

Amid the shouting, villagers gathered everywhere. Widow Feng was so furious she nearly jumped into the pond...

Meanwhile, in the ditch behind the house, Lin Xiaosu had already seen last night's scene through Time Reversal.

"There really are footprints! Look!" Hu Ya pointed at a clear footprint on the ground.

It was dark and damp behind the house, making signs of someone passing through extremely obvious.

Others might not have been able to make them out, but who was Hu Ya?

She was someone who could chase wild boars through the forest until they had nowhere to run, above or below. Naturally, her eyesight was excellent—honed in the wilderness.

"What are you doing?" San Lengzi strode over. The moment he saw Hu Ya, the anger in his heart flared again.

"We're investigating the case, finding out who watched your mom bathe last night," Lin Xiaosu said.

"Investigating my ass! It was Li Lao Er. He's done it before, and..." His voice abruptly stopped because Hu Ya stepped right in front of him, her teeth grinding loudly.

"Hu Ya, don't disturb the scene!"

Hu Ya grabbed San Lengzi by the shoulder and stared at him coldly. "Can you shut your filthy mouth?"

San Lengzi's face went white. "...Yes!"

Lin Xiaosu smiled. His gaze shifted to the windowsill. He reached through the window, lifted the curtain inside, and saw a bathroom. This was clearly where Widow Feng bathed.

He released the curtain, letting it fall back into place, then turned and stared at the slope above.

Following the slope upward, they found traces of someone walking there. As they continued along the path, San Lengzi's eyes opened wider and wider. "How did you know about this path? Were you the one who watched my mom bathe yesterday?"

Hu Ya became furious. "Bullshit! He slept at Willow Forest Temple last night. What, did he use binoculars?"

Lin Xiaosu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Ignoring them, he quickly passed through the forest ahead and arrived at a household's door.

This house stood below the slope. It belonged to Lin Fugui, a villager.

Lin Fugui's only value in this world was probably proving that a person's name had nothing to do with who they were.

His name was Lin Fugui, but he was the poorest person in the entire village.

Everyone else lived in multi-story houses. Even Widow Feng lived in one, while he still lived in the old house his parents had left behind after they died.

These days, as long as someone had working hands and feet, they could always add something to their home. Only he used his feet for wandering around and his hands for stealing chickens and dogs. Oh, right—his hands were also used for holding out upward.

National policies had improved, and poverty alleviation left no one behind. Though everyone was extremely dissatisfied with his behavior, he truly was poor, so he was included among the poverty-relief households. He received guaranteed aid every year, and someone brought him oil or rice every few days. He had become the ultimate master of lying flat...

"Him?" Hu Ya asked.

"Judging by the footprints, it was him!"

San Lengzi rushed forward in several large strides and kicked open the half-closed broken door. Inside, a man in his forties was cooking meat. He held a piece of cured pork in his chopsticks, testing whether it was done.

The three of them burst in at once, and the cured pork nearly fell from his hand.

This man was Lin Fugui.

Lin Fugui was astonished. "I only took one piece of meat from your house. Is it really necessary to tear down my door first thing in the morning?"

"Who cares about you stealing meat? Tell me, were you the one who watched my mom bathe?" San Lengzi's voice nearly shattered the roof, truly embodying what it meant to be aggressive.

A large group of villagers outside looked at one another.

"When I took the meat, I heard movement inside, so I lifted the curtain to see whether anyone was there. How was I supposed to know your mom was bathing inside?"

"So it really was you, you pervert!" San Lengzi flew into a rage.

Lin Fugui became angry too. "Pervert? Pervert my ass! If I wanted to watch a woman bathe, couldn't I just go watch Anna bathe by the river? Her breasts and waist aren't prettier than your mom's? Your mom is over fifty. You're insulting my taste..."

Boom!

San Lengzi threw a punch. The pot overturned, and Lin Fugui let out a long scream...

The villagers rushed over, some pulling and others dragging, and the scene became extremely lively...

Outside, Anna stood on tiptoe, excited. "Honey, they're fighting..."

Lin Ji'an gritted his teeth. "Let San Lengzi beat him up first. If he doesn't beat him to death, I'll give him another round..."

Lin Xiaosu and Hu Ya slipped out of the room and ran off in a flash.

They stopped outside Lin Xiaosu's courtyard wall, and both of them started laughing.

"Hey, I never expected you to be so good at tracking. Want to work together from now on? We'll go up the mountain together. You track the wild boars, I kill them, and we split the meat evenly." Hu Ya had spotted a business opportunity.

She was a mountain girl and had always been skilled at tracking by following signs. But today, she suddenly realized that compared to Lin Xiaosu, her abilities were nothing worth mentioning. Lin Xiaosu was far better at observing traces than she was. She definitely could not have crossed an entire slope and accurately found last night's peeper. No, in essence, it had not been peeping at all—he had merely been stealing cured pork...

"Kill them? How?" Lin Xiaosu glanced at her. "If you're still going to poke their asses with a stick, I'm definitely not working with you..."

Hu Ya's phone suddenly rang in her pocket. "Who in this world is most hateful? Someone who doesn't understand romance is a fool..."

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